


Found Family

by Heptapora



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Friendship, Introspection, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 00:59:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7914223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heptapora/pseuds/Heptapora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percival navigates the strange waters between family as status and family as something that can be made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Found Family

**Author's Note:**

> This is hands down the longest thing I have ever written for pleasure, and I've got no clue what I'm doing. Have fun.
> 
> Shoutout to @nymphandel over on tumbr (Shippeh, here) for shaking off all the excessive semicolons, and starting her own fic, ~inspiring~ me to try my hand at the same, shameless copycat that I am. ;p

Family is blood.

Family is the web of lines that make up the de Rolo family tree. His father’s copy in particular, with ink the color of deep rust sprawling across sheets of luscious, creamy parchment, following the paths of hundreds of ancestors all the way back, back, back, through tens of Percivals and Olivers and Vespers, names like maker’s marks. Whole relationships are sealed into tidy sets of brackets, catalogued by the products of their unions, all weaving together into the map of a people, of an entire world. It hesitates on the present day- But it is easy to imagine it continuing on, anyway. The map is predictable. One can guess, from where it has been, at where it is going.

(Until it isn’t going at all; he’d never imagined that the lines might just... stop.) 

Family is the secret password that opens the door to a world of privilege, the steps to a thousand intricate social dances, the key to a vault of history and obligation, a code that other Families can read. Blood. History. Immutable and unfeeling. It doesn’t matter if you want it, or like it; Sentiment is irrelevant. Love or loathe, it simply is, etched in deep. It can be neither discarded nor earned, bought nor buried.

Percival knows Family. And so he thinks, the first time he hears the members of Vox Machina use the word, that they must mean something entirely different, that only sounds the same.

Almost none of them have Family. This he can read in their faces from the beginning, see in their bearing and in their habits. Vex’ahlia and Vax’ildan are siblings, to be certain, and they might have the most technical of claims to the word but that is all: They come from nothing, and they wander towards nothing again, aimless. A few of the others have.. Pieces, elsewhere; A grandfather, some kind of herd, but they are pieces that will never assemble into a whole thing. Keyleth is the closest, although it takes him some time to realize this, and even then her Family is strange to him, incompatible with the system he knows in some essential way. He doesn’t begrudge them that; Expecting everyone to have Family would be like expecting everyone to be brunette. It simply isn’t the way of the world, and after all, if it were, it would kind of defeat the point. A club can’t be exclusive if everyone is a member, and Family is exclusive.

Still, they keep _saying_ it. The first time it’s Pike: “I can’t think of a better way to spend the night than with my family.” For a moment, he is baffled; He understood that she hadn’t seen her grandfather in months at the very least, and when he glances across at her, she’s sitting at the table, with no apparent intention of getting up any time soon. She is, in fact, halfway through hooking her arm through Keyleth’s by the time he looks up, leaning her head into her, and although he watches for a moment, she does not move, and no one raises any questions.

Later, it’s Grog, and when he says it, he’s wheedling, nagging Scanlan: “C’mon, what’s family _for_?” Percy has no idea what he’s asking for, and quite frankly no desire to stick around to find out. Listening to their conversations can be perilous at best, and if he hadn’t already caught them in this weird habit, this corruption of the word, ‘family’, he might imagine that there is some explanation. They could be discussing someone else’s relations, perhaps. But he can think of no reason this conversation among dozens of others should make any more sense than the rest.

Later still, it is Vax. Vax’ildan leads the way from somewhere to somewhere else again, guiding them through dim streets. Percival lags towards the back, Grog lumbering just ahead of him, with Pike balanced on his shoulder. She has one arm slung over the top of his head, and when he turns, she tightens her grip, clinging to his smooth scalp with gauntleted fingers to keep her balance. He doesn’t seem to feel it. Scanlan trips along at their side, craning his head up, up, up when he addresses her. It’s ridiculous, and maybe it’s the distraction, the watching that makes him vulnerable; Maybe he never would have noticed anyway, and it’s his size, his position fully at the back of the group that makes him a target. No matter the cause, one moment he is watching, and the next he is being swept back off his feet, a hot arm slung around his throat and a pressure at his ribs. He grunts, and that’s all it takes before Grog is turning. A threat hits his ear in a puff of stinking breath, but it goes unheeded. Pike vaults to the ground, Grog lashes out with a massive hand, and there is a sudden, fierce burn in his side, a wetness.

It's an ill-advised robbery, he thinks; A mugging gone wrong, and there are more of them now, but it hardly matters. Vox Machina is ferocious, and these are only street thugs, so it begins, and it ends, so quick it hardly matters. He is sure now that he has been stabbed, though, and surprisingly well. He goes down on his ass, graceless and suddenly lightheaded; For a moment, he sees Vax a few feet down the road, jostling a ratty man by a fistful of his collar. Then all he sees is Pike, surprisingly close to eye level with him now. She lifts his arm gingerly away from his side, and purses her lips in sympathy at the dark stain spreading on his coat.

“Ouch,” she mumbles, sweetly, and he might take exception to the tone, like talking to a child, if he weren’t quite so used to it, to her, by now. She does him the courtesy of stripping off a gauntlet before she reaches for him, pressing chilly fingers over the puncture as they begin to gleam pearly white. The pain peaks, then starts to drain away, the fog clearing from his head before it can really take hold. He realizes as it does that Vax is snarling, the low, deadly snarl that means he’s utterly serious, and the tone arrests him immediately.

“-and you tell your friends that if they _ever_ decide to stick _my family_ over a handful of coin again-“

The threat involves an orifice and something heated over a fire, but he doesn’t catch all of it, too busy searching the darkening street for Vax’s family. For his twin, who must be cruelly injured to leave him so _angry_. Percy lurches forward; Pike arrests him with surprisingly sturdy arms and a ‘whoa, there’, so he cranes his head around her instead, panic rising in his throat like bile. Grog is hard to miss, and there’s Scanlan pawing at a prone body, and Keyleth, but _he can’t see Vex_ , and why is Pike wasting time healing him if Vex’ahlia is-

-standing right next to him. A hand slides into his field of vision, and waves- Like, _anybody home?_ \- and he follows the arm up to the concerned face. Beyond her, Vax slings the man he’s caught, sending him scrambling off into the night.. And Vax is looking at him, too. Everyone.. Is looking at him.

Pike murmurs an admonition- “Let’s not trample me until _after_ this hole is closed, okay?”- and he shakes his head.

“..You said ‘my family’,” he explains, dully. Vax arches a brow, gazes at him until he adds, “I thought Vex’ahlia…”

“I was talking about you, scarecrow,” Vax answers, with a soft snort. Above his head, Vex makes a sound thats half a sigh, half a laugh, and Percy understands the words, but.. “You’re the only one skinny enough to get caught like that, anyway.” At the corner of his field of vision, he thinks he sees Pike’s knowing smile. Then the light of her healing spell fades, and he can’t be sure any more.

“…Oh,” he says, because that’s all he _can_ say, and as Pike backs off Vex’s hand comes down again, open-palmed and coaxing, this time. He clasps it, and she hauls him to his feet with surprising strength; He wavers, manages not to stagger at the last second.

“Any protests, Percival?” Vax asks, flippant as he turns to continue on, ducking the careless hand his twin slings out as his head when she passes him by. Percy shakes his head, mute, and he snorts, starting off again. “Good, because you’re fucking stuck with us.”

And that’s it, all the time they have to spare for being ambushed, however poorly. Scanlan shoves a handful of coin into his pocket, Keyleth touches Percy’s shoulder and smiles before she heads on, calling him, “Skinny,” and Percival.. Lingers. At least, until someone delivers a solid flick to his ribs, jolting him out of his thoughts. He flinches, hisses, the memory of the recent injury still fresh. But it’s solid flesh now, and Pike’s grin when she smacks him on the leg, urging him forward, is impish. Wicked, even. He wonders, passingly, what Saranrae has to say about the unapologetic menacing of one’s colleagues.

“You _are_ family, you know,” Pike says, so quietly that he’s sure only he is meant to hear. He mulls it over a second as he begins to walk, probing an exploratory finger through the hole in his coat. Still damp. Wrong choice.

“…I hate to tell you this, but we’re not related,” he manages at last, lofty and dry. Pike snickers. “I am entirely the wrong species.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You could pass for an ugly gnome, probably.” He fixes her with an affronted look, and she reaches up, plucking his hand from his side and cupping their palms together. When he glances down, they’re both ruddy with blood; His blood, and she seems less bothered by it than he is. He has the sudden disconcerting thought that she would probably reach into his open chest and pump his heart for him if he needed her to; He’s gotten so used to her enthusiastically rummaging around in his injuries that, somehow, he’s actually begun to take it for granted. Before Pike, a knife between the ribs might have put him down. Now, all that’s left of the wound is a hint of uncanny post-healing numbness. The thought is so distracting that when she speaks up again, it startles him a little bit.

“Found family.”

“..You found what?” The gnome’s expression is indulgent, and she swings their linked hands, heedless of how awkward and stiff his is in her grasp, how poor the fit.

“ _Found family._ That’s what my grandfather calls it. It’s the family you choose, not the family that happens to you.”

“Friends,” he offers, lightly. “Also an ‘f’ word. An understandable mistake.” Pike jostles their arms, smacks him with the back of his own hand.

“Don’t _be_ an ‘f’ word,” she shoots back, goodnatured. “I mean it. …About the family.” Her voice gentles as she goes on, and her gaze shifts. She isn’t looking at his face any more, she’s looking ahead of them, and her expression while she watches her- Her ‘friends’, or her ‘found family’, makes something in his chest…catch. “The people we’re born to can matter. So much. But…that’s all chance, you know?” She peeks up at him, out of the corner of her eye, and her expression is still so soft and so open that it sears into him and he can’t help but look away. Mercifully, she doesn’t try to catch his eye again. “It’s totally out of our hands. Who we’re born to, where, when. And I would never say that those bonds are less. But at the same time…if that kind of family matters, the kind that we choose, that we reach out and grab and hold onto, with all our might..” Her hand tightens on his, just for a second, reminding him that they’re still linked. He’d almost forgotten it was uncomfortable. “That kind has to be worth just as much.”

“That’s not-“ he begins, then stops when she peers up at him, curious, and sucks in a breath instead, holds it until his thoughts can catch up with his mouth. “That’s- Lovely, Pike, really. But words…mean things.” He gestures with his free hand, fluttering it helplessly in the air. “Family is a word that… _means_ something. That doesn’t change just because of an— Admittedly lovely sentiment.”

“So what does it mean to you?” She’s all wide-eyed innocence, now, curious and utterly unruffled by his disagreement. Somehow, that’s harder. If she would argue with him, he could navigate that, but now he finds himself…struggling to come up with a real, concise answer. Things come to mind, certainly; Status, the mental image of a family crest mounted above a fireplace, piles of addressed letters, a gleaming family carriage. Reputation. Resemblance. Accounts. The family tree, framed above his father’s desk, that he hasn’t seen in years. That probably doesn’t exist any more. But none of those seem… Good enough, suddenly. None of those are good enough reasons to tell Pike her ‘found family’, paradoxical as it seems, is…less. He tells himself, futilely, that it’s because she just doesn’t understand. She’s from the wrong world, she wouldn’t get it. He doesn’t really.. Believe it. Not now, not while her hands are still crusted with gore.

“Blood,” he says, finally, when the silence stretches on too long. That’s not right, either. But it sounds good, at least, and she nods thoughtfully, takes a while to consider it. Finally, she lifts her hand and points. At Grog, apparently; He spends a few seconds trying to figure out if she’s noticed something remarkable that he hasn’t, but it’s just..Grog, and Scanlan loping at his side, markedly less enthusiastic without Pike as part of the equation.

“..Yes?”

“You know what happened to Grog. Before me, and everything.” It’s a statement, not a question. He nods anyway, cautious. “That was his blood.” Her voice is gentle, still. Kind. And, now, unmistakably sad. “If they’d had their way, he would be.. Gone. He would be nothing at all. Not even a memory. That was what they wanted for him.” She quiets, and he finds he doesn’t have the words to answer her. Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to expect him to. “I picked up the pieces. As best I could, anyway.” She smiles again, but it’s melancholy. “I couldn’t do everything by myself. They left wounds in him that are still healing, even now. Scanlan helps, though. The twins help. Keyleth helps.” She squeezes his hand again. “ _You_ help. All of us, reaching out together.. We’re almost enough to patch all the wounds. Almost. Would you really say those people- That herd- is his family? Would you really say we’re not? Is the blood enough to make us less?”

Gentle, still. She is so, so gentle, coaxing him towards the inevitable conclusion, and he finds he has no protest at all that matters. Oh, it occurs to him to tell her she doesn’t _get_ it, to tell her that’s the wrong kind of family, but.. “..No,” he relents, softly. “No, I suppose I wouldn’t.”

“..Anyway, if it’s blood that does it, we’re covered on that front, too.” The abrupt shift in tone, and the hand slipping from his, both catch him off his guard. He glances down, and Pike wiggles her fingers at him, teasing. His blood is dark against her skin. “Literally. Literally covered.” When he crinkles his nose in disgust, she drops her hand back to her side, chuckling. “Words _do_ mean things, Percy. And when I say ‘family’- When Vax says ‘family’- What we _mean_ is that we’d tear down the world for you, you know. All of us would. Not because you.. Happened to us, or because we’re obligated. Because we love you.” It costs her nothing to say it; She doesn’t hesitate, or flush. It just.. Comes out, tumbling past her lips like it’s easy, and it knocks the breath out of him when it does. _Because we love you_. There was a time that he would have turned his nose up at such an outlandish claim; When had that changed?

“Anyway, there’s another essential point of family. More important than the love, even.” He’s still reeling, and he doesn’t see it coming when she swings a little fist up and raps him hard with her knuckles, right in the side, right over the hole in his coat, _again_ , and he startles, _again_ , and lurches away mid-stride, losing his balance. He gets a snicker for his trouble, and when he fixes her with a disbelieving look, shaking his head, she beams. “We know just how to fuck with you.”

And then, while he’s still staring, she offers him a little mock salute, and calls Grog’s name, picking up her pace to catch up with him. He leans down and scoops her up without having to be asked, settling her back on his shoulder; She raises a fist (The gauntlet-ed fist, at that) and thumps him in the side of the head. Gently, he supposes, but twice, and it only makes Grog laugh.

Watching them, he can’t deny that they.. Work. That isn’t to say he’s totally sold on the notion of ‘found family’- Let alone a ‘found family’ with room for him. It’s a pretty thought, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense. Surely it’s.. Hopeful pretense, at best.

But, he supposes, there are worse things in the world- Far, far worse things- than silly, pretty thoughts. And when Pike twists around, shoving on Grog’s head for leverage, and winks- A theatrical, exaggerated wink- he smiles.

There are definitely worse things. And in the moment- As long as he doesn’t have to admit it to anyone- he can allow himself to acknowledge that, just for now, just tonight, it does feel very, very real.


End file.
